Cooking
by BonesBird
Summary: Brody overhears a phonecall she'd rather not know about, and decides that Pride needs something to cheer her up.


**Hey there friends! So, this... came about kind of accidentally. My friend and I were bickering about cooking earlier and I thought this would be amusing. Pride & Brody being bros in this one... possibly to become part of a series... if I have more ideas for it. ((I accidentally ship this I swear.)) I'll be posting the next chapter of the ENT fic "What Kind Of Day Has It Been" tomorrow.**

**Shin xx**

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><p>Dropping the spoon had been a very bad move, and it had been almost completely unintentional. She'd been hoping to cook here under the radar until she was ready to attempt to serve, but the clanging of the spoon was almost certainly going to alert the only person likely to still be here that she was also here. A second later she heard the running footsteps and realised she'd been right on the money. She'd been rumbled. "What are you doing?"<p>

"Trying to cook." It seemed like the best idea was to just be as honest as she could be. There were a lot of things she could have said she was doing here, but the cooking pot and the spoon would have given those away as lies.

Pride just looked her over with one of those head-cocked 'are you for real' stares that he had somehow come to master, just making her try to contain her laughter. Whenever she was on the receiving end of one of them she had to pretend she didn't need to laugh. It was harder than expected. "I thought we had an agreement last time?"

"We did." That was again the truth. Really, the agreement had been that she and LaSalle didn't try to cook. Considering they started bickering like elementary school kids whenever they got anywhere near cooking, that had been a solid arrangement. As for this, she'd thought she'd be better without an audience. She was wrong. "I modified the agreement."

"You modified the agreement?" The head bobbled to the other side, and she realised he could keep this puppy dog look up for a really long time.

So she decided it was time to stop playing it coy, and admit why she'd decided that tonight, of all nights, he know that somebody cared enough to come back after hours. "I heard the message from your wife about getting a lawyer. I didn't mean to but I did." She really hadn't meant to, but two nights earlier she'd come in late to find her cell and had heard the message being left. Now she not only felt bad for that, but also that he needed someone to care. "So I thought I'd do something to cheer you up."

"Christopher not here?" Pride asked, and Merri just shook her head. When it was clear there wasn't so much belief she smiled and shrugged.

"No. I didn't want to tell him what I overheard." It really wasn't her place to say either. It was Pride's life. When and if they needed to know, she was sure he'd tell them. Right now it was by chance she knew, and nobody else needed to. "Figured you'd say in your own time."

"That's thoughtful of you." So, obviously she had done the right thing not telling LaSalle.

She couldn't help but ask, even though she was fairly sure what his answer would be. "The cooking though?" There was a grin, and she was largely asking out of her teasing nature, but also because she really did want to make him proud of her.

Pride walked up to the can of food, enough for maybe three servings she had thought, and poked it with the now-clean spoon. "I thought I'd taught you how to make this?" There was just a hint of teasing accusation in his tone that she found herself laughing hard at what he was saying. Now she'd have to admit it was a lack of skill.

"I'm really not a very good cook." She laughed, letting go of the spoon completely and smirking.

"That's becoming obvious." He gave her another of his pointed looks. This one seemed to be saying something along the lines of 'no shit, really?'

"Hey, at least I try!" That was surely the bigger, better part of this. She tried and while she had slightly failed it hadn't been too bad and she was sure she could rescue it. "Let me try and rescue this, you should go back to what you were doing."

Pride looked at her disbelievingly for a second, and she just tried to wave him off, taking hold of the spoon again and nudging him aside with her hip. "I was just reading over your reports, I could always bring them out here if you wouldn't mind the company." It wasn't really a request, more a plan of what he was going to do, so going along with it seemed like the better idea.

"Never going to turn it down." She smiled, then waved at the chair's dotted around.

Pride disappeared back into the nondescript building that housed their headquarters, she could hear him rummaging around, but she wasn't so sure what he had been working on other than their reports, so she wasn't going to ask. After a few minutes he came back out and spread the files over one of the picnic tables. Trailing off quietly while she carried on preparing their food. "So, Merri, you finally settled down here?" He asked after the silence had stretched out for what had felt like an unbelievably long time.

"For the most part. Sometimes a little hard, my family is still up north." She had left her brothers and cousins back home, she'd been away a long time though, most of it with little contact.

"Maybe we can become another family for you down here." That was a sweet gesture, unnecessary, and a little different than how she'd been feeling so far, but it was a nice thought. She just wasn't sure if she was ready for them to become family.

That was why she instead laughed awkwardly about the statement before replying. "Well, maybe not. But I appreciate the thought." She really did, too. After such a long time it had taken a lot to get her to this point. That was when she noticed this wasn't going how she thought it would. "This isn't thickening up."

Pride looked up from the file he'd been reading and clicked his tongue. "That's because you're not doing it right. You should just let me finish it."

"But that would take the 'make you a meal' part out of making you a meal." She rolled her eyes and shook her head. It certainly wasn't the outcome she'd hoped for, but right now that might be all they could do to salvage this. She was a little disappointed that it hadn't worked out though.

"How about I make this, and you take me out after the next case?" Pride had, clearly, caught on to her disappointment, probably because she wasn't really trying to hide it. He brought up a good idea, one that was definitely better now he knew that she knew.

So Merri just smirked again and nodded. "OK, that's a deal I can take."

"What do you eat when you're not here?" Pride asked as they swapped places, and he took over stirring the pot.

That was an easier question than it probably should have been, especially considering that she was talking to the person who had cooked the majority of what she ate. "Normally I steal enough leftovers that I have plenty."

"Why doesn't that surprise me?" There was something in Pride's grin that made her laugh.

"You going to stop me eating the leftovers?"

He looked her over a few times, and that was when it became obvious that he was teasing her mostly. "No, I'll let you keep eating the leftovers, on the promise you let me actually teach you to cook one day."

"I get two good deals out of this." She commented, trying not to sound extra happy about it.

"So do I." He smiled, and joking waved the spoon in her direction. She hadn't quite been sure she'd end up fitting in here, but in the weeks since she'd lived here permanently things had gone from strength to strength. Now, she was beginning to see a way she could be happy here. With her annoying work-brother, and a few people who she'd come to genuinely like. Most of all with Pride, who had helped to make her feel more at home than anyone. It was worth it.


End file.
